TEHRAN – Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), says Washington’s moves in the region have even prompted its regional allies to confess that the Middle East would be a more secure place without the presence of the U.S.

“It seems that America’s ruling body has concluded that the world’s power equation and political geometry, especially in its heart the Middle East, has changed and the United States cannot have a claim of absolute supremacy over international affairs anymore,” Shamkhani said in a note, Mehr reported on Monday.

He maintained the U.S. has realized it has only two options: either paying a great cost to try to show that it is a superpower or recognizing the realities of the world and freeing itself from the hefty costs of such an empty show-off.

Shamkhani referred to Washington’s failures in the region, including the disintegration of the Middle East, the deal of the century, regime change in Iran, Saudi policing of the region, the Yemen war, the Afghan peace and the Syrian crisis, saying all these failures attest to the decline of the U.S. power.

The remarks came after U.S. President Donald withdrew American forces from Syria.

On Saturday, Trump said that it was time to stop U.S. soldiers’ participation in an “endless war.”

“I don’t think our soldiers should be there for the next 50 years guarding a border between Turkey and Syria when we can’t guard our own borders at home,” he told a crowd of evangelicals.

Following the U.S. withdrawal, Turkey launched its military campaign against Syria which Ankara says is meant to purge the Syrian region of YPG militants. Turkey views YPG militants as terrorists linked to local autonomy-seeking militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The YPG, which itself is the military wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), constitutes the backbone of the SDF, an anti-Damascus alliance of predominantly Kurdish militants.  

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Ankara will not stop its military operation against Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria “no matter what anyone says."

MH/PA